In 1921 Mannerheim accepted the
chairmanship of the Finnish Red Cross.

The request was put forward by Richard Faltin, Mannerheims school-fellow who had
been a military surgeon in the Russo-Japanese War, in the First World War and in the
Finnish War of Independence of 1918, and was fully familiar with the work the
International Red Cross did during the wars to impartially alleviate pain and suffering.

It
was Faltin who had cured Mannerheims fever after the battle of Mukden in 1905.
Mannerheims sister Sophie was the head nurse in the same hospital with Faltin and
was very active in the Finnish Red Cross. One of the
reasons for accepting this post may have been, as it has been said, that Mannerheim wanted
to emphasize the unpolitical nature of his person in a situation when he was being an
object of dispute among the Civil Guards.

Mannerheim
worked actively in the office of the Red Cross (16, Annankatu) in the 1920s and 1930s,
when, e.g., an ambulance was being equipped to be sent to the Abyssinian War. He also
reached a prominent position in the International Red Cross and managed, in 1942, to
provide vitamins for Russian war prisoners in a weak condition. Since the Winter War, the
work of the Red Cross concentrated more and more on the care and rehabilitation of the
disabled soldiers. In the 1940s Mannerheim had little time to participate actively in the
work of the Red Cross but he remained chairman till his death.